


that day that we watch the death of the sun

by sugarybowl



Series: (there are many loves but only one war) [3]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 06:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18404585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarybowl/pseuds/sugarybowl
Summary: “Grandaddy,” she said, looking so much like her namesake that it made Quentin’s heartbreak, “will you tell us one more story before we go?”





	that day that we watch the death of the sun

They arrived wearing mostly purple, with wet eyes and shy smiles and deep frowns and grief and rage. Their family had grown so large that Quentin wondered how ever he’d get them all inside the little cabin. He walked right to his boy, greying and beautiful, surrounded by his wife and daughters.

“Hello Daddy,” Ted said as he stepped away from the rest and pulled Quentin into the tightest hug. 

“Hello little prince,” Quentin whispered with a smile.

“Daddy,” he whispered back, “Pop is gone.”

Their foreheads leaned against each other’s, Quentin knew that his boy needed to hear the words from him, “Yeah Teddy, Pop is gone.”

Ted wiped Quentin’s tears instead of his own, sniffing as he pulled away.

“I’ve always believed I would come home one day and find you both gone, your quest finished. I never thought...”

He took a deep breath and kissed Ted’s forehead.

“We solved it, we got the key. I should have known,” he said softly in his son’s ear, “what could have been more beautiful than him?”

Teddy laughed, choked off and incredulous, “Where is it?”

“Where it needed to go,” he answered, “it’ll be returned to you. To our family. You make sure it gets to your auntie Margo, Ted.”

His son nodded solemnly and kissed his hand, “I promise, dad.”

Quentin felt the war of warmth and bitter chill in his chest, broken between the love he felt for all of the faces around him, and the desolation of missing the one face that had always been there. 

As they gathered around the place Quentin had chosen for El, Swayze grabbed a handful of dirt in a quivering hand and gripped it like the hilt of a sword. She loved her Poppa most of all and was so brazen about it that Q loved her all the more for it. He remembered the day she had come to them, fourteen and sunburnt and brave in her brand new lilac dress. She kneeled at Eliot’s side and kissed his hand like a king’s and smiled up at him.

_ “Poppa,” _ she had said,  _ “I know that dad put me in your arms and asked you to name me, and I have loved that name. I came to give Patrick back to you and ask you for a new one. But not Patricia, please,”  _ she added in a rush,  _ “I don’t like that one at all.” _

And Eliot had grinned wide and kissed the gold of her hair and the tip of her nose and said it was simple, he’d named her Swayze and made her a gown fit for a princess of Fillory before she went home. Quentin kissed the top of her head now and cradled her cheek in his hand until she took in a shuddered breath and moved away from the ground. 

Her older sister held Quentin for a strong but short moment and stood stone still beside the grave. Arielle liked to keep busy all the time, especially when emotions threatened to rise in her. Ari had always been tied to Quentin’s hip as a baby and enthralled by his stories as a child, her face serious and her eyes drifting to far off lands. As a woman, Quentin worried he had passed on his curse to her whenever he saw the shadows lurking in her eyes. 

He turned his attention to the last young woman beside him, her eyes huge and full of barely held back tears and rage. Eliot had never admitted to favorites, but Buffy had something of Margo’s spirit in her, she was Ted’s baby and Eliot’s darling.

“I’m angry,” she said, after all she had been raised to always speak her heart, “I am angry that he is gone and I am angry that I could not say goodbye and I am angry that my child will never know him.” 

Quentin understood her, or maybe she understood Quentin, because he was angry too. He was angry that they wasted time fearing their life here would end  suddenly, angry that Eliot never got to see his life’s work completed, and angry at the years that lay in front of him without Eliot at his side. He was angry and he was heartbroken and he wanted to go home to the man who he’d buried and couldn’t bear to live without.

He was tired and considered his original plan of sleeping on the ground beside him until Eliot came for him, because surely, surely Eliot would wait for him. But Ted and the girls were here and his body had strength left in it that he didn’t want or need but would most certainly live with for as long as the land and the quest wanted to keep him. 

“Come with us,” Ted said as the sun began to fall and the moons to rise above them, “Oddelle has already fixed a room for you and -”

“Oddelle is a queen and you don’t deserve her,” Quentin teased as he smiled at the round cheeked woman gathering her daughters in her arms, “but I’m not going anywhere. You know I’m not.”

“Daddy-”

“I won’t leave him,” he said with finality. 

“Let us stay with you,” Buffy said her hand on her belly, her declaration so swift she must have held the words in her tongue for the whole journey there. 

“You need your mother and father, Buffy, not an old man to take care of.”

She made to protest, “Grandaddy …” 

“No more buts,” he declared, “Pop and I will be fine, we always have been.”

In the back of the little crowd Quentin watched Arielle squeeze her mother’s hand and step forward.

“Grandaddy,” she said, looking so much like her namesake that it made Quentin’s heartbreak, “will you tell us one more story before we go?”

Slowly, one by one, the members of the family that he and Eliot had raised - his Arielle’s gift to him - sat around him and looked up at him. About him he saw only children, despite the grey of some hair and the roundness of some belly, they were all children to him, bright eyed from tears and happiness. 

_ “Once, a very long time ago, many years from now there lived a boy on farm who wanted to live anywhere but there. He traveled far from all he knew looking for home, and he found many other things along the way. There were many people, far too few of them kind, and there were lonely years and heartbreaks and more pain than anyone should bear and he took all that and made himself into a man he’d always dreamed of being. He found magic and an equal; his matched set; who understood every twitch of his smile and gleam in his eye, who protected him as fiercely as any knight but who harboured the heart of a fearsome and powerful queen. Together they reigned spectacularly, destroying enemies and protecting all of Fillory. Until one day that boy on a farm who stumbled into a crown that was always meant for him, followed a fool on a fool’s errand and gave up his crown and his queen and all he had worked so hard on. For a silly fool. For all of this. Out of tiles, the king and the fool made pictures and thoughts and anything that could come close to resembling all that was beautiful in life. They were found, tired and desperate, by the cleverest woman who ever lived. She wrapped her arms and her heart around them; she gave them love and home and she gave them a prince. And when she was gone, this queen of their hearts, it seemed all would be lost. But there were tiles to be placed, a quest to complete. There were peaches and plums and a prince. So this king and this fool they built. They built pictures for a puzzle and patterns for quilts, they built toys and instruments for the prince. They built a family - tile by tile. And then one day, the sun bright and the tiles nearly set, the king went to sleep. Went off...somewhere the fool would soon follow - and left a gift. The precious useless thing they had so sought for, sure. It had come. But the king had left the fool the gift of every memory, every smile and shout and kiss and fight. He had left the songs in the prince’s heart so he could teach all the little children. He had left the fire burning in the hearts of three princesses, who would grow to teach songs and stories to princes and princesses of their own. All these gifts received, the fool sat and waited - patiently - for his king.” _


End file.
